


A Royal Romance

by MsBarrows



Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Marriage Negotiations, Political Expediency, Prompt Fill, Rare Pairings, Romance, Strangers to Friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-23
Updated: 2014-05-24
Packaged: 2018-01-26 06:59:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1679006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsBarrows/pseuds/MsBarrows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prince Sebastian Vael visits Denerim in pursuit of Hawke and Anders. Queen Anora Mac Tir persuades him to stay. A series of loosely connected prompt fics, previously published in my "In The Maker's Light" ficlet collection.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Fereldan Bride

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stealyourshiny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stealyourshiny/gifts).



She was not much different in age than he, this Fereldan Queen, Sebastian found himself thinking as he bowed before her throne.

“Prince Vael,” she said, then rose to her feet, walking the few steps down from her throne to offer him her hand. “A pleasure to meet you. I have heard much about you,” she added.

His eyebrows rose, just slightly. “From Hawke?” he asked, as he lifted her hand, before bowing a second time to press a kiss to the back of it. She was smiling slightly when he rose, amusement visible in her eyes.

“Among others, yes,” she agreed. “Join me,” she said, and turned her back, walking away.

He barely hesitated before following her; he doubted he need fear assassination in her court. She led the way around the throne, to a door hidden in back of it, and into a small sitting room. She tugged once on a bell-pull, then sank into a comfortable armchair beside a small table, and gestured for him to take the other seat. “They have already left Ferelden,” she told him, quite composedly. “Do not bother asking for where; they did not tell me their travel plans, nor the Warden-Commander. They merely visited long enough to see Bethany Hawke delivered to Vigil’s Keep, saw another companion of theirs to the safety of the Brecilian Forest, and then set sail from Gwaren, destination unknown.”

Sebastian looked at her curiously. “Word of this could have easily been sent to me when my ship docked. Why then did you ask for me to attend on you at your court?”

Anora smiled. “Because I wished to see you, and speak with you. I spent some time talking with Hawke and Anders before I let them depart,” she added, then fell silent as a servant came in, carrying a large tray. She waited silently while the servant set the tray down on a small table handy to both their seats, and nodded graciously to her as the woman dipped a curtsey at them before leaving.

She lifted the tea pot, and poured for both of them, passing Sebastian his cup first of all before pouring her own. She took a cookie from a plate of them, then settled back in her seat, cup in one hand, cookie in the other. Only after eating a neat bite of her cookie did she finally resume. “You are aware, I am sure, that following the Blight I granted a boon to the mages here in Ferelden, taking control of Kinloch Hold away from the chantry and instead giving it over to the control of the mages themselves.”

“Yes, I have heard of this,” he agreed, frowning. “A dangerous precedent…”

“Yes, yes, so the Grand Cleric tells me at least once a week. It has, however, worked out very well; the mages govern themselves, and as they are well aware that their continued control of their own lives depends on their proving themselves to be trustworthy, they police their own ranks quite efficiently. More, it has meant that Ferelden now enjoys the services of the mage-born to a degree not seen anywhere else outside of the Tevinter Empire itself. We are becoming accustomed to mage freedom here, with my nobles clamouring constantly for even greater access to healers, elemental mages, and the like. You understand, then, that it would not be politic for me to assist you in your pursuit of the apostate Anders?”

“Not politic!” Sebastian all but exploded, putting his half-empty tea cup back down with unnecessary force, tea slopping over the side and pooling on the tray. “He is a murderer! And an abomination…”

“And not here,” Anora said, coldly, easily cutting through his rising tones. She set her own cup down, with rather more decorum than he had, and lightly dusted her fingers of crumbs before folding her hands together in her lap. “I do not doubt that the man has done terrible things. Terrible things were done to him, as well, by the chantry and by the templars. I do not say that excuses what he did!” she added, lifting one hand warningly when he started to speak. “But in any case, Anders is not what I wished to speak to you of, nor why I asked you here.”

“Then why…?” he asked her, puzzled.

She glanced away, looking uncomfortable. “A small fact that Hawke brought to my attention, which I have since had confirmed by my own archivists. It is because of your great-grandmother that I wished to speak to you.”

“My great-grandmother?” he asked, and frowned, puzzled, mentally running through his family tree. Enlightenment struck. “The Fereldan bride!”

“Yes. You may be the solution to a problem I face, Prince Vael. The blood of Calenhad flows in your veins, thanks to that marriage, as it does not in mine. And you are sufficiently high-born to please even the most stick-in-the-mud traditionalists of my nobles, even if you are _not_ Fereldan-born. I would speak to you, Prince Vael, of the necessity of heirs.”

He frowned, then slowly settled back in his chair. “Go on,” he said, quietly. It would not hurt to at least listen to what proposal she had, he thought. And she was, after all, a very fine-looking woman.


	2. Negotiations

Sebastian glanced sideways at Anora as the two walked slowly side-by-side along the pathway that curved through the gardens of the estate; one of the many holdings of the Fereldan monarchy, this one on the edge of the Brecilian forest, a good two day’s ride southwest of Denerim.

He should, some part of him insisted, be elsewhere; pursuing Hawke and the mage, seeking to bring Anders to justice for his murderous actions in Kirkwall. And yet another part of him was quite content to be here, walking alongside this extraordinary woman. He’d known her so short a time – only slightly over a week – and yet the two of them had already grown very close. She was everything he might ever have wished for in a wife, had he ever given the matter much thought; intelligent, self-sufficient, thoughtful. And faithful, but with that questioning mind that Elthina had taught him to value. That she was also beautiful, and seemed much taken with him in turn… well, he could do worse than becoming her Consort. She’d already made it clear that it was not a co-rulership she offered, even if her nobles would have been willing to accept a foreign Prince as their King.

“And how would we solve the issue of inheritance?” he asked her. “You perceive that Starkhaven and Ferelden are too far apart to merge under one ruler, even if either of our peoples were willing to do so.”

She frowned slightly, as she slipped her hand into the crook of his arm. “I am unsure,” she said. “For me it is obviously important that I have an heir to Ferelden, before giving thought to any other country; my firstborn child _must_ be my heir. Given the dangers of childbirth, I must also be wary of pregnancy; I am old for a first child, much less a second one, though I would prefer to try for both an heir and a spare before taking steps to prevent further pregnancies. The second-born could be named as your heir.”

Sebastian nodded. “There would still be the question of what to do if you only had one child, or if one of them died. Or… worse… if you died in childbirth, with or without issue.”

She nodded, and bit at her lip for a moment. “An heir for Ferelden must be my priority. And… forgive me for saying it… but you are a man. Your ability to father an heir will last well into your dotage, while mine to mother an heir will last only perhaps a decade or so more. Whatever children I have must be dedicated to the continued rule of Ferelden first of all, to Starkhaven only as long as one of them is not needed here. If that is not something you can agree to… well, I have other options for a consort I can pursue, though all are likely to be considerably more politically volatile for me.”

He slowed to a stop, and looked thoughtfully at her for a moment before speaking. “Is it only political expediency that concerns you?” he asked softly.

She met his eyes, and coloured slightly. “No. You know me well enough already to know it is more than that,” she said. “I… well, we have not known each other long enough or well enough to use stronger words as yet, but I like you very much, Sebastian. I feel certain that we can at least be friends, as man and wife, and possibly… possibly more.”

He smiled warmly at her, and set his hand over hers on his arm, squeezing it lightly. “As do I,” he admitted, then resumed their slow walk along the flower-lined pathway. “It will be a difficult marriage, in some ways, even beyond the question of heirs,” he pointed out. “I will need to spend much of my time in Starkhaven; you must obviously remain here. We will only be able to spend some small part of our lives together each year.”

She shrugged. “I am used to solitude. Even before his death, my husband spent little time in the capital or in my bed. We were always friends, and I certainly loved him, at least for a time… but I was never sure if he ever loved me, or had only married me only because it had been arranged so between our fathers, and at least I was a wife he liked to some degree. Doubtless my nobles will prefer the idea of you only being around as much as is necessary to engender children,” she added, making a sour face.

That drew a laugh from him. “While my own will be sorely aggrieved that my heir is being born and raised abroad. And must be the second-born! You realize the child will need to be fostered to Starkhaven at as young an age as is feasible?”

“Yes,” Anora said, then smiled. “Are you willing to ignore your nobles’ unhappiness then?”

“I think I am,” he said. “Though as unwilling to marry as I have been until now, I think at least some of them will be happy that I have finally taken _any_ bride, even a foreign one.”

She smiled warmly at him, and they walked a little bit further in silence. “If there is not a second child, you will have to put me aside,” she said after a while. “That must be written into the terms of the marriage contract.”

He glanced at her again. “And what if I did not wish to put you aside?” he asked, very quietly.

She gave him a startled look, then blushed. “We would have to discuss that when and if such became necessary. But the terms must still include it; I will not keep you in a marriage that cannot give you the heir you need.”

She had said it firmly, almost scoldingly, but he could tell by the blush and the way her hand had tightened on his arm – and not loosened again – that she was pleased.


	3. Amazing

It had been too long since he’d last practised with his bow.

Sebastian frowned at the loose pattern of arrows in the target, then strode forward and removed them one by one, examining each carefully for any damage before returning it to his quiver. His accuracy was down; unacceptably so, at least by the high standards his grandfather had insisted he must reach and maintain. The result of too much time spent in politicking and socializing, rather than at the archery butts. And something he must remedy.

He returned to the mark, and shot again, managing a marginally better cluster this time. Though not a satisfactory one; far from that. Resolutely he gathered his arrows again, shot again, over and over, slowly regaining the facility with his bow that he’d had prior to the beginning of his visit to Ferelden.

It was late afternoon when he heard the scuff of soft leather shoe against the stone flags, and turned to find Anora watching him, a look of amused interest on her face. “I had wondered where you had vanished to today,” she said, then smiled, tilting her head a little to one side. “Do you mind my watching?”

“Not at all,” he told her, smiling warmly, then turned back to go fetch his arrows again.

He was very aware of her eyes on him as he took his next shots. He did not let it disturb him – few things could, when he was absorbed in using his bow – but he found himself wondering, as he went to retrieve his arrows yet again, if it was the archery she was interested in watching, or him. He was well-aware that he cut a particularly fine figure when shooting. He felt somewhat disappointed, when he turned back from the line of targets, to find her no longer there.

She stepped out from the nearby armoury doorway a moment later, carrying an unstrung bow in one hand and a quiver in the other. A very simply made recurve bow of dark word, about two-thirds as long as she was tall. It was inlaid near the hand-grip with some paler material; a contrasting wood, or perhaps horn. The quiver she carried was of equally plain construction.

Anora paused for a moment, slinging the quiver over her back, then before Sebastian could offer to do so, strung the bow herself, not in the least impeded by her long dress. She looked up from doing so, and smiled at him. “I thought I should practise as well,” she said calmly.

He raised his eyebrows. “I was not aware you used a bow,” he told her, honestly surprised.

Her smile broadened slightly. “It’s hardly a subject likely to come up during our negotiations. But I’ve been using a bow since I was a child,” she said, stepping up to the line and eyeing the closest target. “My father taught me,” she added, adjusted the hang of her quiver slightly, then took out an arrow, nocked it, and drew in one smooth movement. The arrow _thunk_ ed into the bull’s-eye of the target a moment later. With no wasted movements she continued shooting, releasing arrow after arrow, forming a cluster so tight their ends could have easily been covered by her palm; far tighter than his own efforts today had yielded. Far tighter than he could usually manage even when in better practise, for that matter.

“Amazing,” he exclaimed softly.

Anora glanced his way, and smiled again, clearly pleased to have surprised him, then went to retrieve her arrows.


	4. Engagement

Sebastian waited patiently by the door, feeling both nervous and excited. He glanced at a nearby mirror, checking again that he was ready for the evening ahead. Freshly bathed and clean-shaven, hair neatly combed back, his outfit – dark blue leggings, a pair of low black boots, topped with a white silk shirt embroidered around the neck and cuffs with a tracery of gold, a sash of paler blue around his waist – as neat and clean as the rest of them.

He heard Anora’s approach before he saw her, the low voices of her attendants preceding her into the room. He straightened, and smiled as soon as he saw her, wearing a dress of pale blue and white trimmed with gold cord; clearly there had been communication ahead of time between her staff and his as to what was to be worn. “Queen Anora,” he said, and bowed to her, then held out his hand as he straightened up.

She smiled warmly at him, eyes dancing with barely concealed happiness. “Prince Sebastian,” she said, and gave him her hand. He bowed over it, then when he straightened, tucked it into the crook of his arm.

“Are we ready then?” he asked quietly, glancing sideways at her.

“Ready as we’ll ever be,” she said, and nodded to the guards bracketing the door. Her attendants faded off to the sides, disappearing to wherever it was servants went when not serving. The pair of doors were swung open, and the pair of them walked forward into the dining room.

It was a large dinner, but an informal one, so there was no announcement of their entrance, no fanfare, but a hush fell across the room as soon as they entered anyway, faces turning to study the pair of them; more specifically, to study Sebastian. This dinner was meant as a chance for Anora to introduce him to her political allies, and gain their approval of him before moving on to a formal declaration of their betrothal during the upcoming Landsmeet. As such, the dinner was important to the peace and happiness of their intended marriage.

The pair of them circulated around the room, Anora introducing him to person after person among her political allies. A few stood out, either by fame – Teyrn Fergus Cousland of Highever, Arl Teagan of Redcliffe, Arl Owen of Amaranthine – or by some unusual aspect of their person, such as Bann Shianni of Denerim Alienage and Bann Oswyn of Dragon’s Peak. Mostly it was a small sea of names and faces and titles that he worked hard to memorize, knowing well how important it would be to be able to remember them without prompting later. Thankfully that was a skill he’d learned under his grandfather’s tutelage in his youth, and continued to exercise during his long years in the Kirkwall Chantry, so adding another two or three dozen faces and names to memory was not all that monumental a task.

After the introductions came more specific questioning, a few people drifting closer to talk or listen, others maintaining their distance, in what Sebastian presumed was a dance of manners based on standing – social or political – within Anora’s faction.

“Refresh my memory of how the Vaels are related to the Theirins, please,” Arl Teagan asked politely. A staged question, Sebastian knew, asked for the benefit of those less familiar with the family trees in question; he had already been introduced to Anora’s uncle-by-marriage some days earlier.

Sebastian answered. “My great-grandfather, Prince Leontine, married the youngest sister of King Vanedrin of Ferelden, a few years prior to the Orlesian invasion of Ferelden. He was… what was it, Anora, the great-grandfather of King Cailan?”

“Great-great grandfather,” she corrected him gravely. “His son King Brandel was the father of Queen Moira, who was Cailan’s grandmother,” she explained, then turned back to Teagan. “Her absence from Ferelden meant she was one of only two siblings of Vanedrin’s to survive the invasion. There was another sister that also survived.”

“My own great-grandmother,” Teyrn Fergus spoke up, eyes warm with amusement. “And merely the most recent infusion of the blood of Calenhad into the Cousland line. Though while that gives me a somewhat better claim to the blood than Prince Vael has, it is not the degree of blood that is important here; it is that he bears the blood of Calenhad at all,” he said, and bowed his head respectfully to Sebastian.

Sebastian bowed back. “Thank you. Yes, I certainly would never seek to make any claim on the throne of Ferelden for myself, despite any relation to the Theirin line. I have a Princedom of my own, and I am needed there.”

“And how will you balance the needs of a Princedom in the Free Marches with being Prince-Consort to a Ferelden Queen?” someone asked. The elf, Shianni, he saw as the crowd parted between them and her.

He smiled warmly at her. “With a great deal of travel, and frequent regret at being parted from my wife and our eventual children,” he answered. “I will have to spend much of each year in the north, seeing to the needs of my own kingdom. Anora may on occasion be able to travel to the north with me, but feels that Starkhaven is more able to do without me than Ferelden without her, which given the differences in their relative sizes I find I must agree with. My lands of Starkhaven are not even as large as your Bannorn, and nowhere near as contentious.” That drew an amused laugh, ‘trouble in the Bannorn’ being so common in Ferelden as to be regarded as more of a usual condition than any source of true worry.

A few more probing questions were asked, mostly from people curious about what little they’d heard about his past; his time in the Kirkwall chantry and involvement in recent events there, his recovery of the Starkhaven throne from his cousin Goren and the like. Eventually a bell rang, letting them know the meal was ready to be served and ending the conversations for now. They moved to take seats around the long polished wood table that dominated the room, Anora seated at one end of it with Sebastian to her right, Fergus’ wife – his second, Sebastian had been told by Anora, the first having been killed by treachery during the Blight Year – seated to his right, with Fergus beyond her, while Arl Teagan and Arlessa Bella were seated across from him, others spread down the length of the table in order of rank and mostly in alternating male-and-female seating, though there were a few more women than men present, due to losses in the Blight Year.

It was a quite agreeable meal, most of the conversation sticking to relatively innocuous subjects such as the likelihood of a good harvest that year, a recent unusually good run of cod off the coast of West Hill that the Highever fishing fleet had crossed paths with, and the slow but measurable recovery of blighted lands in the south. That last was a minor triumph for Ferelden, as the areas of previous blights in other countries were mostly still deserts and wastelands today. Ferelden had taken the novel approach of burning off the blighted areas, using a combination of natural fire and mage-fire to sear all the blighted areas down to bare soil. Since that was completed they’d begun establishing pockets of transplanted healthy soil and vegetation, working from the northern edges of the cleansed areas southwards. It would be the work of generations to reforest all of the affected areas, yet already new life could be found spreading out into the wastes.

If asked, Sebastian would have had to admit himself impressed by the Fereldans, despite them commonly being held to be little better than fur-clad barbarians. They were a determined people, and the only furs he’d seen since his arrival here were of a style and quality that would have been greatly admired in the markets and salons of the Free Marches. Far from their reputation as being ill-mannered barbarians, he’d so far found them well-spoken, well-educated, and invariably polite. Perhaps such preconceptions were based in part on the many who’d fled Ferelden during the occupation and more recently the Blight; yet there was certainly a great difference between desperate, often uneducated poor and those at higher levels of society. The many refugee Fereldans he’d met in Kirkwall had not been any more barbaric or noticeably less educated than their Free Marches equivalents, after all.

The meal was lengthy, consisting of five different courses, and it was late evening before the event drew to a close, he and Anora saying farewell to all the guests as they departed. He could tell that she and her nobles were equally pleased by his remembering all their proper names and ranks. Once the last had departed, Anora sighed, and smiled warmly at him. “That was well done,” she said approvingly. “Join me for a drink before you retire for the night?”

“I would be honoured,” he said, and accompanied her out of the room and to her private apartments. The servants here were clearly both well-trained and alert; by the time they reached her sitting room, there was already a kettle of water heating over the fire, and the makings of chocolate arranged on a small table between two comfortable chairs. An expensive treat, here so far from where the cacao for chocolate was grown.

Anora prepared their cups herself, grating in chocolate and sugar and spices, then whisking in the hot water and, for herself, a quantity of cream to temper it. She liked hers very sweet and milky; Sebastian preferred the more robust flavour of it with only minimal sweetening, just enough to take off the bitterness it would otherwise have had. They sipped at their cups of chocolate, settling back comfortably in their seats.

“That went well,” Anora said after a short silence. “I will hope things will go as well when we announce our betrothal at the Landsmeet. And after that, there will just be the waiting to get through, until the wedding.”

“I wish it might be sooner than next spring,” Sebastian said softly.

Anora smiled, a dimple appearing in one cheek. “As do I. But a royal wedding takes time to arrange, especially when we must invite nobles from all over Thedas to attend, and give them enough time to respond, prepare themselves, their wardrobes, and their gifts, and then travel here. Asking them to travel in winter would be unkind, and there is not enough time for us to hold it this fall.”

“Not when the leaves are already turning here,” Sebastian agreed, regretfully. “And in any case I must travel to Starkhaven and back first, to inform my own nobles. Is it too forward of me to say that I will miss you when I am in the north?”

“Not at all,” she said, and smiled again. “Not when I too will miss you. I am thankful that your journey brought you here; not merely because your appearance solved a problem for me, but also because I feel that we have become friends since your arrival, and I have few enough of those to treasure each one.”

Sebastian nodded. “As I treasure mine, who I would guess are equally few. Most of those I was friends with in Kirkwall are either dead or gone their separate ways, or no longer any friend of mine. In Starkhaven… well, in Starkhaven there are very few that I am close enough to think of them as a friend. Perhaps, in time, I might acquire more, both there and here.”

“Is there any of your friends from Kirkwall you would wish to be here?” Anora asked, looking curious. By now she’d heard much of them, having spent many hours talking with Sebastian about both his past and her own.

“Fenris,” he said immediately. “I asked him once if he would join me when I went to Starkhaven; unfortunately he turned me down. I no longer know where he is, since the events of that day, though I don’t believe he is with Hawke any longer. Possibly Isabela as well,” he added, and smiled crookedly. “She would likely scandalize all of your nobles and mine, but she was a friend, and I hope still is. And one of the priests who survived, though I would guess her too busy to make the journey; she is a mid-wife, and was out seeing to a birth when the chantry was destroyed. I used to accompany her to such, in my early years with the chantry – Grand Cleric Elthina thought that helping to minister to the poor would be a good learning experience for me. Which it was; there are few things more humbling than having to care for a group of poor and hungry children while their mother gives birth. Not that the children of wealthier families were any less challenging to keep amused during a lying in; worse, if anything.”

Anora laughed. “More chocolate?” she asked.

Sebastian nodded. “Is there anyone you particularly wish could be here?”

“Other than my father? Not really; at least not that won’t be here anyway. Fergus, Oswyn, Owen, a few others I consider as personal friends, they will all be here. I don’t have any friends abroad, or friends in unlikely places. Well, perhaps a few of the people I knew in Gwaren, growing up… except I always kept my distance from them, so apart from an aunt and a pair of cousins from my mother’s side of the family, there isn’t really anyone there either.”

“Will they be invited here? These maternal relatives?”

Anora smiled again, a fond look on her face. “Yes, they will be, and their families. They’ve been busy making me new little cousins the last few years, most of whom I have yet to have a chance to meet.” Sebastian laughed. Anora looked thoughtfully at him. “What about you? You still have living cousins, do you not?”

Sebastian grimaced. “Goren and his wife and brood, a handful of mostly very elderly distant relatives; few survived the decimation of my family that put Goren on the throne. I doubt I’ll want Goren here, though his eldest boy is old enough to become a page in my court, and I perhaps I should name him as such before returning here. It would be an additional assurance that Goren won’t get any ideas about reclaiming the throne while I am away.”

“In that case I’m surprised you didn’t do so already before going hunting after Hawke.”

“I did the next best thing; I sent Goren abroad while I am away, as part of a lengthy trade delegation to Antiva City. And while he is gone, his wife and children are enjoying the comfort of their Starkhaven townhouse rather than their country manor. Both of them well under guard, of course; I wouldn’t want Goren thinking I would allow any harm to come to Merina or their children, or to himself,” he explained virtuously.

Anora laughed. “Was the choice of Antiva rather pointed?”

“Why, because they usually solve their own political problems with assassinations? Perhaps a little.”

“And you’re not afraid that being so close to a source of Crows wouldn’t give Goren ideas?”

Sebastian grinned. “Not when I happen to have hired a highly placed one as a local consultant for the duration of Goren’s stay there, which he has also been made aware of. Undue curiosity in local customs can be dangerous to the uninitiated, after all. Goren may be a fool in some things, but he is more than intelligent enough to understand the message in that. I am certain he will mind his manners while abroad, and not bring back any tacky hangers-on later.”

Anora laughed again. “You know, I think my father would have approved of you; not because you have hired an assassin, but because you have hired one in such a way as to hopefully attempt to render his – or her – direct service unnecessary. Good use of both strategy and tactics, he would say; to avoid a battle you have no wish in taking part in. And to make sure that if your opponent ignored your desires and engaged anyway, he would lose quickly.”

“I will take that as a compliment,” Sebastian said, and sighed. “Though in truth I have little training in the arts of war; I had some training toward being a leader of the local militia, in my youth, but proved to be a disaster with a sword, which put an end to that. After that my grandfather taught me how to use a bow. That, I am reasonably good with, as long as I keep in regular practise.”

Anora leaned her chin on one hand, and smiled at him. “If there is time, between the Landsmeet and when you must depart… I would enjoy it if we went and visited the Royal Hunting Lodge for a few days, and did some bow hunting. It is not every year that I can find the time to do so, but it is an activity I enjoy. My father taught me to use a bow; he and I used to hunt together, down in Gwaren and later here.”

“I think I’d enjoy that. What sort of game do you go after?”

“Small game, mostly – rabbits and geese and the like – though in season there are deer. And in the south we went after moose a time or two.”

“Moose… I’ve heard of those. I’ve never seen one. Are they truly as huge as a draft horse?”

“Bigger, sometimes. And with the oddest horns, like outspread hands with stubby fingers, rather than the branch-like horns of deer or elk. They like swampy areas; with the blight having destroyed so much of the Korcari wilds, there is some fear that there may be much fewer moose in Ferelden for years to come, though the Brecilian forest and some of the wetter areas along the Frostback mountains also have them.”

“I will hope that someday you and I may go and see some, whether or not we bring bows.”

Anora smiled again, then sighed. “I suppose we had best call it a night. It’s late.”

Sebastian nodded, and they both rose. “Thank you for the chocolate,” he said softly.

She nodded, then hesitated a moment, biting her lower lip, before stepping closer. She set her hands on his shoulders, and gently pulled him down, kissing him on the lips, a kiss that started softly and gently and quickly acquired heat.

It was with an effort of will that he stepped back from her, ending it. “Every moment until the spring will seem an eternity,” he said huskily, and surprised even himself by truly meaning it. He flushed.

Anora laughed, looking pleased by his reaction. “I agree,” she said, a touch breathlessly. “I will be counting the days until our wedding night.”

Sebastian nodded, and bowed to her, then left. Half a year yet, until their marriage; it _was_ going to be an eternity.


End file.
